


The Truth Is I'll Always Love You

by MercurialArchivist



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Marriage, Other, Reincarnation, True Love, and a lot of problems when you fall in love with the same person in every life, and it's even worse when they don't remember you, there are a lot of problems with time travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:12:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercurialArchivist/pseuds/MercurialArchivist
Summary: The first time he steps off the bus, he doesn't know what to expect. The next time, she's confused. The hundred times after, they know what to expect. Love doesn't always end with death, though,and all they wanted was a quiet life with their first love. Come hell or high water or monsters on the farm, they'll get it.





	1. Life one

The first time Jamie steps off the bus, he doesn't know what to expect. He'd only been an office drone before, other than a small garden in pots he kept on his apartment balcony, and the farm has him immediately feeling overwhelmed. Digging, cutting trees, hoeing the yard, planting, watering... He's amazed he didn't pass out in the dirt, and as it is, he barely makes it to the bed, well before the sun goes down.

The next day is much the same, if slightly worse for the soreness in his arms and legs. He pushes through, though, and gets through a decent chunk of his to-do list. Water plants, plant some new ones, clear out more areas of the farm, and start building paths.

He's amazed how time flies as he begins to adjust to his new schedule. Before long he finds time to spend, and he spends it meeting people, talking to people, making friends. It's almost the end of spring before he meets Leah, though.

It's at the Stardrop Saloon, when he's dropped by for a drink on the way back from Clint's place, bag weighed down by the haul from a few geodes Clint broke open for him. He's laughing at Emily's joke and almost chokes on his drink when someone comes in, a voice he doesn't recognize.

'I thought I'd met everyone already,' he thinks, turning to see who this new arrival is. Immediately he stops and turns back around to keep from staring. Long red hair is the first impression, but he's gotten better at taking in information at a glance. She's dressed well and beautiful, but she's got muscle to go with it, and her hands are calloused. Her sleeves are rolled up and while he thought that he'd been getting a bit of definition, now he knows he has a way to go. He looks again, from the corner of her eye, as she takes a seat at one of the tables by herself, seeming content to just be where other people are.

It takes him longer than he'd ever admit out loud to work up to standing and walking over, smiling and holding his hand out.

"Hey, I'm Jamie. Just moved onto the old farm. Thought I'd met everyone already, but I guess I missed you somehow."

She smiles and gods is it gorgeous, and she laughs but it's not at him. Her handshake is firm and friendly, the smile is contagious.

He goes home a while later, and while most nights he's mentally drafting the schedule for the next day, tonight, only one thought is on his mind.

'She's an artist.'

____

Jamie is not, of course, so foolish as to assume that being immediately smitten means anything. She's gorgeous and friendly, but he knows well there's more to love than that. He spends the next few weeks following his schedule as usual, and they run across each other a few times. Usually they talk for a bit, unless one of them is in a hurry, and she's always friendly and polite.

He makes a bit of a point to remember things she says she likes, and one day in the middle of fall, he knocks on her door, hands dirty, and proudly presents her with a chanterelle he found on his property. She smiles and invites him in, offers a glass of water and shows him what she's been working on. A sculpture, a bit taller than she is, wood chips and shavings scattered around the base of it.

Before either of them know it, it's been almost two hours of talking about art and their own feelings on it. He took an art class or two, and knows enough to know when someone else knows more than he does, so he spends most of his time listening with rapt attention.

When he does finally leave, he spends a little bit of time before sleeping trying his hand at whittling something. He makes a passable duck and sets it aside on a table. Maybe he'll finish it later, but for now, he needs sleep so he can work tomorrow.

____

Their eventual marriage is the talk of the town, if only because everyone in town claims to have seen it coming. Even Sebastian claims as such, though his friends laugh and declare him a liar.

The wedding day seems to go on forever and speed by at the same time, but vows are exhanged, as well as the all important kiss, and fond memories made. They go to bed that night, and Jamie can't help but to smile, excited to see Leahs face when he wakes up.

The next morning, Jamie steps off the bus, and she has never been more confused in her life.


	2. Life two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie is surprised, and not, and scared, and not, and is definitely not avoiding anyone, how dare you accuse her of anything.

The second time Jamie steps off the bus, she knows exactly what to expect. Except... She doesn't. The bus hasn't been working since it broke down almost two years ago. She walks down the road, that familiar road to her farm, and is greeted by Robin and Lewis. Her memory is far from perfect but this is familiar somehow. So she just lets them talk, doesn't interrupt, and listens.

After they leave, she goes straight inside. It's smaller than it should be. Dustier. The expansion that Leah added while they were planning their wedding isn't there. *Leah is not there*.

She rushes right back out, not yelling, not screaming, but hurrying to where she knows Leah's cabin is, and there she is, standing by the river, and Jamie's breath catches in her throat. It's her. But it's not her.

Even from a distance, this is visibly not the woman Jamie married. Her hair is a touch too short. The shirt she's wearing got torn and patched. There's a scar on her forearm that's missing. And Leah is looking at Jamie like she's never met her before.

It's a long moment before Jamie shakes her head and forces a smiles.

"Hey, I'm Jamie. Just moved onto the old farm. Thought I'd, you know... Meet the neighbors."

Leah smiles immediately, just as friendly and kind as ever, and waves her over. "I'm Leah. It's great to meet you!"

The smile is contagious. The handshake is firm. Jamie has to fight not to cry.

____

Jamie makes her excuses and hurries back to her house as the sky grows dark, tears running down her cheeks now. 'What was I doing yesterday? I... I was... I was GpEaTcTiInNgG fMoArRaRmIoEvDe.' Her brow furrows, and she mumbles a curse. Something is wrong here.

She clearly remembers the wedding, Leah's lips on... His? The whole night is clear as a bell, as well as being decidedly male, but Jamie also remembers, just as clearly, being a woman, packing up her apartment, the same apartment, in order to move to her grandfathers farm.

So distracted, she barely notices the slimes until the squelching sound is right in front of her. Muscle memory has her reaching for a sword, but there's nothing there, and then there's pain when it impacts her stomach. She reaches for the next best thing and pulls out her shovel and starts swinging. And swinging. And crying. And swinging.

When she stops crying her arms hurt and all that remains of the slimes in her yard that were never there before is a couple greenish stains in the dirt that will be gone after the next rain.

She stares at it, and then everything catches up to her in a sudden realization. This is not where she's supposed to be. She retches, but all that comes up is water, and the sound of more slimes behind her means there's nothing to do but run for the house, the only point of light in the darkness.

She sprints. Slams the door open and shut behind her. Locks it. Leans against it and slides to the floor as the monsters at the door try to get through, until they give up. Then... Then she sleeps. On the cold wood floor, she sleeps until the sun wakes her.

____

Jamie's days quickly get into a pattern. She's not stupid by a long shot. The wizard didn't talk to her the first time until the Jumino's found her, so she works on the farm until she can get Lewis to go to the community center her with her.

It doesn't take long for that to happen. A bright, sunny day in early spring, Jamie and Lewis explore the community center, and she investigates after he leaves. She can't read the plate, which is a surprise, but it's fine. The Wizard contacts her, and as soon as she can, between taking care of the small amount of crops she has (was her body ever really this weak?) she makes her way down. He doesn't get a word out before she says, "I think there's something wrong," and the explanation comes spilling out in a torrent of words while he stands there, stunned and confused, until he grabs a piece of paper and starts scribbling notes.

Finally he responds. "I don't... Not believe you. Dealing with the things I have, you tend to keep an open mind about things, but this is beyond my experience. Travelling between... I'm not sure, timelines, maybe? It's not something I've even really thought about."

Jamie doesn't say a word, just listens to him think out loud. The Wizard is one of the smartest people she's ever met. If there's anyone who can do anything at all about this, it will be him. So she sits and waits and when he asks for a single drop of blood and permission to contact some colleagues, she doesn't hesitate to tell him yes.

She does, though, have to run back shortly after leaving to get his help. She still needs to be able to read the plates in the community center, after all.

____

The days and weeks go by, and Jamie is still avoiding Leah. She can't bear to look at this person that, in another live, married her (but it wasn't her it was him and it hurts that she can't bear to try and find out if she would feel the same way) and she can't bear to hear her voice. She feels increasingly awful about it, as they're making headway to being everyone else in towns very best friend and closest confidant. Her relationship with Emily seems to be especially strong. In different circumstances, she would be tempted to pursue this. She didn't get to know Emily nearly as well the first time, but... A vow is a vow, even if only remembered by one person.

If nothing else, Jamie keeps their word.

Spring becomes summer and the wizard sends her a letter to return, but the news isn't good. He can't find anything strange or unusual about anything about Jamie, and he is sorry. He believes her of course, and he'll keep looking, but if there is something different about Jamie that caused this, then he doesn't have the tools.

Jamie returns to her farm late that night, only fleeing from her spot by the lake when she sees Leah approaching, maybe curious about the odd woman from the farm. The monsters that are still on the farm don't stand much of a chance, and Jamie doesn't cry herself to sleep, but her pillow is damp in the morning.


	3. A second life ends, a third one begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie's a little upset. The Wizard is only slightly helpful.

Summer becomes Fall becomes Winter, the time flying past as Jamie throws herself into working harder than ever before. The farm flourishes, and the constant work brings back the musculature she remembers having before. This is helped, of course, by the regular invasions on the farm by bats and slimes and monsters whenever she stays out too late. Sometimes she stays up on purpose just to have something to fight and take out some frustrations on. Once aweek, on Saturdays, she visits the Wizard to see if he's learned anything new.

Every time, it's the same answer. Nothing new. Nothing special.

It's a day like this, late on a Saturday, when she stops by to see the Wizard, and he asks her to stay for a bit. Tea is made in silence, and she sits at the table, watching and waiting until he sits down, and even still she's halfway through the cup before he says anything.

"I think that I may have found something."

Jamie immediately sits ramrod straight, hand clenching on the cup in her hand until she's surprised it doesn't break.

The Wiazard sighs. "Time and magic relating to it is poorly understood, but there are some theories. We know it's closely tied to nature magic, and the Jumino's are tied to that. They've... Picked you, I believe, because you already had that in abundance. In the last couple weeks, there's been a noticeable increase in magic relating to time around you and your farm." He leans across the table, oddly serious, even for him. "I don't know exactly what's causing it, and I don't know how to stop it, but something is happening. And if this is what happened before... It's very likely it's going to happen again. By the end of spring."

The cup creaks. It cracks. Then it breaks. Hot tea scalds her hand, the shards cut her skin, and Jamie does not notice any of it. She just clenches her hands around the shards and stares.

The Wizard watches. He waits. Then he comes around the table, kneeling in the puddle of tea, and carefully pries her hand open. A towel and water and some kind of potion appears as if by magic and he carefully clears her skin of the shards and rinses off the blood, unceremoniously dumping the potion over the wounds and nods in satisfaction as it binds around the cuts and pulls them together.

"Your hand will be sore tomorrow. I'd say take the day off, but I've seen how hard you work." He chuckles, a wry smile on his face as he stands, waving his hand vageuly, a notebook flying to his hand. "I do not think that I can solve this before it happens again, so... I'm going to give you a copy of my notes. I want you to memorize them, so when you jump back again, you can give them to me again and I can keep working."

Jamie takes the notebook numbly, only faintly registering his instructions. "What... What should I do until then?"

He sighs. "Live your life. Make friends, keep your farm working, grow crops, raise some animals. The real truth of it is that this might take years." The Wizard chuckles. "For you, at least. For me, by the time I crack this, you'll be solving most of it for me. It will be the greatest breakthrough in magic in centuries, and I won't even be able to fully take credit for it."

____

Jamie wakes up the next day and for a long moment just stares at the ceiling. After a little while, she gets up, and starts going through her day mechanically. Once the plants are watered and the animals fed, she goes back inside and takes a seat at her table.

The text of the notebook is dense, more math with odd symbols than anything. Still, she studies it harder and more intensely than anything she ever has before. There's no context, and she feels like a kid who just learned 2+2=4 and is being asked to solve matrices. There's a foundation, and here and there even things she recognizes as some fundamental principle, but it's so far removed from what she has seen before that there's nothing she can do but memorize and hope.

____

She spends the next couple of months trying very hard not to thing about the upcoming anniversary at the end of spring. The days are spent working on the farm and memorizing by rote any updates the Wizard gives her, and she uses every trick she's learned from school and from work, reading the entries out loud, rewriting them over and over again. By the middle of spring she has a whole shelf filled with notebooks that are just copies.

By mid spring, she can no longer ignore it. With one day left to go, she makes a poppyseed muffin and writes a note and, late at night, leaves it at Leah's door. An apology and a promise all in one. An apology for avoiding her, and a promise to do better.

The next morning, Jamie steps off the bus for a third time, determination in her heart and a promise in her mind. She'll fix this, somehow, and she'll get her happily ever after with Leah, and nothing is going to stop her. Nothing will stand between her and being happy.


	4. Life four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The town is curious, and Jamie finds hope.

After spending her first day back writing down every note the Wizard gave her to give to him, sometime next week, she gets to work, clearing and planting the land. She doesn't get tired as fast, this time, not due to being in any better shape, but just due to having the memory of how to hold her tools in the most efficient way.

This third time, there's no monsters on the farm. Instead, it's a maze of pools and streams, offshooting from the river on its way to the ocean, with fish and garbage alike winding through the property. Jamie looks at it from the front door sometimes, that first week back, hands in her pockets as she plans.

It's a Monday when she manages to get Lewis to let her into the community center, and Tuesday when she sees the Wizard for the third first time. She lets him tell her about the magic in the area, then wordlessly hands over the packet of notes, along with her own observations.

He's puzzled, but takes it without comment, his face tightening a little as he keeps reading, finally finishing. He looks at her across the table, face firm.

"If I was literally anyone else, I don't think I'd believe you. But I guess I don't have much choice but to give you the benefit of the doubt, since this is my method of note taking..." He trails off and Jamie shrugs, not really having too much to say in response. "I'm going to have to teach you some of this magic, though... It would help to have a second pair of eyes, and the more you understand what's happening, the more useful your observations will be. Saturday, come by, and I'll start teaching you."

Jamie almost says yes immediately, but she hesitates. "Is that really necessary? I have a farm to take care of, and adding this on top of that. I'm not super sure that I can actually do both."

The Wizard chuckles, "It's not going to be everything about magic, and it won't take long. Just the basics of this branch, and what to look for when you're dealing with it."

She pauses for a long moment before nodding, holding her hand out to shake his, and with that, the deal is made.

____

Of course, even with lessons from an expert, magic isn't easy, even more when you've only got a couple hours a week to spare.

She does what she can, focusing on the observations, and on using every trick she learned in school and on her own to memorize every single note she makes, writing them down and repeating them out loud, reciting them while fishing and planting.

And still, she does her best to avoid Leah. How do you talk to someone you married when you know they don't know that? What does it mean when you know almost everything about someone who barely knows you?

She tries not to think too hard on that, and when she does inevitably run into her at the saloon or on the road, she passes by with a smile and as calm a "Hello" as she can manage, trying to convince herself her heart isn't pounding in her chest, ignore the urge to just hold her again and get lost in the smell of wood.

This doesn't go unnoticed. The new farmer, so friendly to everyone, is going out of her way to avoid one of her closest neighbors. By the middle of Fall, a few of the people in the town have decided to find out why.

____

Abigail is, as usual, blunt with her questions. "So do you just hate Leah or something? Is it the hair?"

Jamie is stunned for a moment and almost drops the hoe midswing. Abigail had come by in the middle replanting, and Jamie is beginning to think it's because she knows she can't get away when this has to get done today.

"I... No?"

"Then why don't you ever talk to her or anything? And you just go out of your way to avoid her. Like last Friday, you just turned right back around and left the Saloon when you saw her."

Her mouth is suddenly dry. Had she done that? She must have. She hadn't considered how this would look to everyone else.

"I don't hate her, she just... Reminds me of someone."

Abigail nods, trying to look wise. "Ahhh. An ex? Some bad memories?"

"No, good ones. All good. Just... Memories that I can't really do anything about right now. I don't want to think about them too much."

Abigail just looks puzzled for a moment before she shrugs, adding it to her mental list of gossip about the new girl in town, and asks instead if she can help out at all.

____

By the time Winter comes around, Jamie and the Wizard have both been noticing magic building up around the farm. The Wizards guess is something happening, sometime in late Spring.

Jamie pares down all her activities around and outside the farm to the bare minimum, spending all her spare time memorizing observations and notes, and there's so many more this time, with the magic building up, causing all kinds of small, minor miracles. Her crops are sprouting faster, growing more, the harvest is larger, almost like something is affecting the speed that they grow.

By the time the end of Spring rolls around, she's ready. Her notes are memorized, and she's prepared to make all the notes she can as soon as she steps off the bus again. She goes to be, as at peace as she has been in the last three years.

____

The fourth time Jamie steps off the bus, it's with a smile, and he's writing as he makes his way to the farm, scribbling down the equations and notes and observed phenomena. He spends a bare minute looking around the farm, looking awfully like it did the very first time. He listens to Lewis and Robin with half an ear, then hurries in and finishes his notes.

As soon as they're written, he collects them in a folder and puts it into the middle of the table. The plants growing faster is the biggest jump forward he's had yet, and he's excited to know more, more than he ever has been before. One week until he can visit the Wizard and present his findings.

This time, though, he resolves to talk to Leah. He loved her once, and she loved him, and maybe this time will work. And if it doesn't, maybe the next time.

Or maybe the next time.

He falls asleep with a smile on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> And so we begin again! And again and again and again. I'm going to try and make this an ongoing project, and I think we'll get through a few more "lives" at least. This is, though, more of an introduction to the story than anything else.


End file.
